Children who spend time on Facebook "more unhappy," says Sheffield University study

Darren Burke

Children who spend more time on social media are more likely to be unhappy, a University of Sheffield study has revealed.

Researchers discovered that children who spend more time on apps like Facebook, Snapchat and WhatsApp are likely to feel less satisfied with all aspects of their lives - including their school work, appearance, and family.

Girls were found to be more adversely affected then boys about their appearance, whereas boys were found to be less happy with their friendships.

Philip Powell, who helped conduct the research, said: "Our finding show that social media use can be detrimental on average to young people and this is consistent with a number of findings in previous studies.

"We can't say any social media is bad but we can say that the more social media children use, the higher the likelihood that they will be dissatisfied with different domains of their life and their life overall."

The team of economists found that just an hour a day on social media is likely to reduce the chances of a child being completely happy by nearly 15 per cent.

The findings are particularly revealing for parents - especially after an Ofcom report found that children ages five to fifteen spend an average of three and a half hours a week more on the internet then they do on television.